Seriously, Stop Taking Your Shoes Off On Stardust Racers
Why YOU are the biggest problem plaguing Epic Universe's best rollercoaster.
Walking around a sprawling Epic Universe for twelve hours in a pair of cheap, loose flip-flops is already a highly questionable life choice. But deciding to take those flip-flops off in the seat of a 62-mph dual-launch coaster isn't just bad for your arches; it’s almost quite single-handedly ruining the operational efficiency of what’s considered Epic Universe's flagship rollercoaster.
If you’ve spent time in the queue for Stardust Racers recently (or ANYTIME in the past year), you’ve probably noticed guests are treating the ride vehicles like their living room couches. Don’t take your shoes off? It sounds like a ridiculous warning. Right up there with having to tell people not to drink the water on Jurassic Park River Adventure (you sickos). But unfortunately people are consistently doing this, and the resulting delays can ruin your entire day at the park.
Stardust Racers is a massive operational asset for Epic Universe because it’s essentially two roller coasters on one load platform. Because of the dual-track setup, the coaster’s theoretical hourly capacity is pushing an estimated 2,750 guests per hour. That translates to roughly ~46 riders being dispatched every minute. When a guest stubbornly slips their shoes off and shoves them behind their back right before the dispatch sequence, they trigger a full safety halt. Team Members have to march down the platform, retrieve the shoes, reprimand the guest, and reset the launch sequence. If that causes a seemingly minor ten minute delay, nearly 460 people just lost their chance to ride in that time. In some infuriating (yet increasingly common) instances, guests have removed their shoes immediately AFTER dispatch, forcing operators to e-stop the vehicle in the first launch tunnel. Recent guest reports have cited instances where multiple cars removed their shoes in a row, leading to massive 40 minute cascading delays. A 40 minute halt means over 1,800 guests are suddenly backlogged in the queue.
Epic Universe is becoming a masterpiece of a theme park, but it relies heavily on Stardust Racers to eat the crowds. Donkey Kong Mine-Cart Madness handles a relatively sluggish 700 to 800 guests per hour. Curse of the Werewolf sits right around the 1,000 riders per hour mark. Stardust Racers does the heavy lifting of roughly three other rides combined. When Stardust goes down, whether it’s a 30 minute shoe retrieval delay or a massive multi-day closure like the infamous double-valley incident we saw this past January when cold weather and high winds stranded both trains, that massive capacity simply vanishes. Those 2,750 hourly riders flock to the lower-capacity rides/attractions. A single extensive delay on Stardust Racers can instantly balloon the wait time for Donkey Kong by well over an hour because the park’s internal crowd displacement breaks down.
To be somewhat fair to the perpetrators, the confusion largely stems from a lack of theme park/amusement park industry standardization. At many regional parks, taking off loose flip-flops and sitting on them is somewhat common operating procedure for inverted or floorless coasters. But Stardust Racers features open-air vehicles with zero restrictive side walls. If you leave your shoes on the floorboards, they aren’t going to politely stay there when you hit 133 feet of sustained airtime and numerous zero-gravity rolls.
Consider this a public service announcement on behalf of everyone waiting in the sweltering Orlando heat, especially for this upcoming summer where lines will be LONG. When you walk through those portals, leave the regional park habits at the gate. Wear a decent pair of sneakers, tie your laces, and for the love of all things operational, please stop taking your shoes off on Stardust Racers.
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